The copyright madness

What do you think of “artists” who have very strong copyright rules …but only use external resources not made by them?

I think it’s quite hillarious. A lot of people lately are acting like sick people regarding the copyright issues. They’re over-protective and no one can even post their magnificient “artworks” in their poor personal blogs or dA journals. C’mon people… if you have made an image in which 100% of the stuff you used (stock photos, 3D renders, textures, vectors, brushes…) was downloaded from others or purchased… what the fuck are you claiming as your own like if you were gods? Here in earth people are laughing at you madly.

Yes, I use stocks, but my digital images are done either 90 or 100% with my own photos, and I only use royalty free stock when I just can’t take certain pics (for example, if I’d like to include a pig in my image and I have no access to one of them, I will certainly download it from Stock Xchange for example, or in other cases I use stock models from Marcus Ranum since I don’t have access to people posing nude for me in most of the cases, and he allows us to use the images freely).

I follow a Creative Commons / Copyleft license. That means that people can download my artworks for their personal use and can also post them in their websites. After all, art is for everyone and I find stupid to deny access to your own creations. I’d only get mad if someone would use my stuff for commercial purposes. I have seen people posting my works in personal blogs, design websites and even they have used them for MySpace templates or headers… man, I couldn’t care less, even if someone would claim my images as their own… I have the PSD/RAW files! And also, that’s free advertisment for my work. Just search for my name in Google… you’ll get hundreds of results… why? Because I allow people to post my images elsewhere, and for that reason, they credit me as the owner. Sometimes, with people who react like total retarded nerds, website owners’ just don’t publicite them or I’ve even seen some people posting the images and don’t crediting the owners (hey, that’s not fair at all, but I bet they have some resented feeling since nowadays most websites are working under Creative Commons licenses…).

So yeah, it’s fun to see that those so called “new artists” (which mainly come from copying ideas of the actual trends like the gothic chicks)think they’re creating something, which, at least from my point of view, they’re just cutting and pasting stuff from others, and they even have the guts to claim themselves as great CREATORS. Wtf dude…!

Oh yes, you can say that not everyone is able to access to a good camera or to a tablet or whathever… well, if you want to work in certain fields, you have to make sacrifices. I have a Canon EOS 400D and some lenses and add-ons, and a tiny Wacom Bamboo tablet. I use my boyfriend’s laptop since my computer is dead and I use my friends as models, and at least once a week I go out of my house and I take photos of everything I see even if it’s something I don’t actually need, just in case it will be useful in the future. I have pics from 2005 that I have not even used yet, but they’re there. Yes, you can start using only stuff from other people, as I did, to learn the media. I started doing photomanipulations in 2005. In the first year, I used monstly external pics, but in the 6th or 7th image I did, I started to use my own stuff. I evolved from that to almost only use my own stuff, and many of my illustrations from 2007 to present were done with my own resources, so I can feel I’ve done all the work by myself and the artwork is really mine. And even so, I’m not running all over like a mad teen crying about the rights of my works. Yes, they’re here, but you shouldn’t act like that and open your mind… it’s HYPOCRITE to say you don’t want others to see what you do! Okey, we make stuff for ourselves in first instance, and at least in my case, I don’t care if someone tells me “I like/don’t like”, because tastes are personal after all… but if I post my work in deviantArt, my website and other places… it would be stupid to say I don’t want people to look at it! Maybe for my friends to see, or maybe because from time to time someone gives you constructive criticism which at least for me is always welcomed because yeah, I do nice stuff, but that doesn’t mean I cannot improve; yeah, I have strong knowledges about composition, colour, technical stuff and so on… but sometimes people can notice mistakes you just weren’t aware of. In my case, what I love the most is when people tell me their interpretations or reactions about my pieces. But no, those copyright teens even disable comments, because, oh, they are so good.

About Mario Sánchez Nevado

Mario is the CEO of Aégis Illustration. He's a freelance Illustrator and Art Director based in Madrid (Spain), and works creating covers for music bands and publishing houses all over the world. He also develops the role of Art Director and Manager of the international artistic collective Hysterical Minds. Also, he writes Photoshop Tutorials from time to time and teaches digital imaging and self-management for creatives.